A consultant is conducting a vSphere cluster deployment.

The failure of the vMotion operation indicated by the error message could most plausibly be caused by: A. The vmknic (VMkernel network interface card) configured with a conflicting IP address. This conflict can prevent the ESXi hosts from establishing a connection over the VMotion network, as each host must have a unique IP address on the VMotion network to facilitate proper migration communications. Option B, involving NIOC settings, and option D, involving vSS configuration, could influence performance but are less likely to cause a complete failure to connect. Option C, related to the Foundation service, is not relevant to vMotion networking issues directly. References: VMware vSphere Networking Documentation, Nutanix Integration with VMware Environments.